Ukrainian city stays quiet amid war

in DNIPROPETROVSK, Ukraine — The battlefields of eastern Ukraine are barely 100 miles from this city, but there is no visible sign of the militant separatism that has roiled neighboring regions.

Traffic hums as usual down Karl Marx Street, the main thoroughfare lined with cafes serving cappuccinos and macarons, and boutiques selling Italian clothing.

Blue and yellow bunting, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, is wrapped around a fence encircling the main government building. The flag is on conspicuous display from cars, balconies and rooftops.

Dnipropetrovsk is a firewall of pro-government sentiment in a restive region, and local officials aim to keep it that way.

They have co-opted critics, given office space to supporters, offered bounties for pro-Russian provocateurs and established their own militarized force to set up checkpoints throughout the region and beyond.

Most controversially, they have employed bare-knuckle tactics with those who harbor pro-Russian opinions, warning them of harsh consequences should they try to take over government buildings as separatists did in the nearby cities of Donetsk and Luhansk.

“I called them in and told them there is a red line,” said Borys Filatov, the deputy governor who made a fortune as a corporate lawyer and now flies around the region in his private helicopter fulfilling his official duties. “I said, you can wave your flags and shout anything you want. But if you try to take over the building, there won’t be any of this ‘Please leave,’ like in Donetsk. We will shoot without warning. We will kill you.”

He paused and seemed to ponder how his take-no-prisoners message sounds to an outsider.

“I am sorry if I sound brutal,” he said.

It is too late to know whether such strategies would have prevented separatist takeovers elsewhere. But officials here say their experience stands as a rebuke to less decisive officials in other regions. While some were reeling, uncertain how to stanch the separatist takeovers of entire cities and regions, government officials here brought the unrest to a screeching halt by neutralizing the pro-Russian agitators and strong-arming them.

Dnipropetrovsk takes part of its name from its location on the banks of the Dnieper River and part of it from Grigory Petrovsky, a Russian revolutionary of Ukrainian origin who was chairman of the Central Executive Committee during the Soviet era.

Today, the city of 1 million people is filled with engineers who design and make rocket launchers for sale to countries around the world.

‘One day, it just stopped’ The first stirrings of separatist anger here flared early this year.

Men who supported pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych rushed out of the regional administrative building and beat demonstrators who were part of the movement that eventually ousted him in February. The interim government that took over appointed a new governor, Igor Kolomoisky, who is Ukraine’s third-richest man and had been living in Switzerland.

With a billionaire at the top and several millionaires pressed into service as his deputies, the government adopted a sort of free-market management approach.

They gathered dozens of civic groups together, including environmentalists, feminists and pro-government activists, and provided them office space in the regional government building.

They also reached out to radical groups they suspected might favor the idea of joining Russia and addressed some of their concerns.